The Wayfinding Academy is Hiring! – Education Revolution – Alternative Education Resource Organization

The Wayfinding Academy is Hiring!

The Wayfinding Academy is hiring for 3 student serving positions: a Student Recruitment Coordinator, an Internship Program Coordinator, and a set of Guides to serve as advisors to our students. While none of them are individually full-time positions, we could envision one person holding multiple of these roles simultaneously (depending on the skills and interests of our applicants).

About Wayfinding Academy:

We’re a new 2-year nonprofit college in Portland at the heart of a movement toward a revolution in higher education. We are working to turn a backwards model of higher education frontwards by first teaching students how to ask and answer questions like, “who am I?” “what do I want to do with my life?” and “how do I get from here to there?” We combine a core curriculum of 9 courses designed to help build effective citizens with intensive workshops, advising, mentorship, and internship programs that are tailored to the individual student’s needs and dreams. As a scrappy nonprofit startup, we are still laying much of the groundwork of our programs and figuring out our systems. We opened our doors in 2016, and are currently teaching our first cohort of students. We are based out of our campus in the St. Johns neighbourhood. For more information about the Wayfinding Academy, who we are, what we do, and what we believe, check out our website at https://wayfindingacademy.org.

Why you might want to join us:

The Wayfinding Academy can help you learn new skills, expand your network through ours, make new friends, and stretch yourself in the context of a supportive community. If you want to struggle for greatness, laugh while you work, define your own path, build something that matters, and change the lives of students, this is a good opportunity for you. We are committed to helping everyone we work with figure out their next steps and help them take those steps, so you’ll know what you’re doing next when this position is over.

For all of the following positions, these are qualities of an ideal candidate (and what you can expect from your co-workers):

Conscientious: do what you say you’ll do
Dedicated: you need to care about the college, the mission, and the people in it
Curious: you won’t know everything you need right away, so you better love learning
Independent: management resources are thin, so most of the work is self-directed
Humble: we’re learning as we go, and that requires a willingness to self-critique
Gritty: when the going gets tough, you don’t run away or shut down
Kind: starting a college is challenging, we need to be good to each other
Revolutionary: we need change in higher education, you should be on board for that

Commitments Expected of all of the following positions:

Participate in Orientation the last week of August – this is when students will be matched with Guides and this relationship will begin (required)
Attend off-site strategic planning retreats which take place approximately 3 times per year (very strongly recommended)
Participate in Wayfinder Weekend and teach a Lab or be a Guide during this event (optional)
Attend various student recruitment events (e.g., Open House) or community engagement events (schedule permitting)

Who we think will thrive in these roles:

Someone who is collaborative, self-directed, tenacious, asks great questions and is an even better listener. Someone willing to push themselves in service of a mission. Positivity is a big plus. So is curiosity. Experience building relationships with and serving adult learners is preferred, but many sorts of lived and professional experiences will be helpful and taken into account.

Here are the positions:

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Lead Matchmaker

Title: Lead Matchmaker (Director of Student Recruitment)
Time Commitment: ½ time role, so approximately 20 hours per week (can be combined with other roles at Wayfinding Academy)
Longevity Commitment: Ideally we would like this person to be on our team for at least 2-3 years
Salary: Negotiable, but equivalent to the range of $30,000 to $35,000 as an annual full time salary
Location: Wayfinding Academy (8010 N Charleston, Portland, OR), occasional meetings and events around Portland

Why does this position matter?

The Lead Matchmaker is an integral part of building future cohorts at Wayfinding Academy. As the leader of a small matchmaking (student recruitment) team, this person will be responsible for driving strategy, promoting Wayfinding to students, parents, and influencers, building relationships, and managing a recruitment experience that is unlike other college admissions. While we have a foundation and framework for the recruitment experience, you will be asked to make it better!

Key responsibilities for this position include:

Build & execute recruitment strategies
Evaluate past recruitment marketing efforts and build a go-forward strategy to promote Wayfinding Academy to potential students, parents, and their influencers.
Establish relationships and partnerships with local, regional, and national organizations to spread the word on Wayfinding with a specific focus on building relationships with traditionally underserved populations.
Plan, host, and attend student recruitment events both in person and virtually to connect with prospective students and parents.
Build and execute a recruitment-focused social media plan to share the stories of Wayfinding students and our mission with prospective students near and far.

Matchmaking

Lead a small team of part-time matchmakers by training and guiding them as they connect with prospective students. Meet with this team weekly for 60-90 minutes to coordinate matchmaking team responsibilities.
Respond to prospective student inquiries and meet one-on-one with students to learn more about them, answer questions, and help them determine if Wayfinding Academy may be the best next step for them.
Be the primary point of contact for an assigned group of prospective students, guiding them through the entire student recruitment process.
Lead the application process, both technically to make sure the application works, and thoughtfully by training application reviewers and ensuring the process for both students and reviewers is a positive experience.
Manage the process of inviting students to join Wayfinding, which includes executing Find Your Fit interview days and Commencement Days (invitation days).
Develop the administrative aspects of the matchmaking process, adapting past systems for maximum efficiency and utility moving forward.

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Internship Program Coordinator

Title: Internship Program Coordinator
Time Commitment: 1/4 time role, so approximately 10 hours per week (can be combined with other roles at Wayfinding Academy)
Longevity Commitment: Ideally we would like this person to be on our team for at least 2-3 years
Salary: Negotiable, but equivalent to the range of $30,000 to $35,000 as an annual full time salary
Location: Wayfinding Academy (8010 N Charleston, Portland, OR), occasional meetings and events around Portland

Why does this position matter?

We believe it is important for student to have opportunities to try out potential career paths and life paths before committing to them fully, so all Wayfinding students are required to complete two internships during their 2 year program. The goal is to give them the chance to try something and make new connections in Portland and since our students have many different areas of interest, we need to have connections in many niches in and around Portland to help them get experience in their area of interest. The person in this role will be critical to supporting our current and future students and also to helping spread the word in Portland about Wayfinding and finding like-minded organizations where our students might want to work.

Key responsibilities for this position include:

Strategic Program Planning for the Internship Program
Cultivating new internship opportunities for students and building out our existing database with new opportunities and working with our IT team to turn it into a searchable/sortable database
Map out the entire year of the internship process (e.g., determining timeline for steps in the process, due dates, etc.)
Figuring out a process to get students matched with the best possible internships for them and what, if anything, should be the difference between the first and second (or third) internship a student does.
Try to secure funding to get students paid for internships with local non-profits (e.g., through sponsorships or grants).
Collaborate with other members of the crew and Wayfinding community to clarify the vision and mission and purpose of the internship program.

Management of Internship Program

Teach a pre-internship seminar Lab for students in cohort 1 and 2 (once per year).
Meet regularly with Guides and students about the internship selection and maintenance process.
Communicate with students and internship supervisors to help them create their Learning Agreements, throughout their internships as a form of checking in, and at the end of their internships to capture lessons learned.
Participate in weekly or bi-weekly crew meetings (required if this is also combined with another role at Wayfinding)

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Wayfinding Guide Job Description

Title: Wayfinding Guide

Time Commitment: 10 hours per week on average year round (assuming you are serving approximately 6 students), possibly slightly more at times when classes are in session and less during academic breaks
Longevity Commitment: We understand that sometimes life happens and plans change, but ideally we seek Guides for 2-year commitments so the students can have the same Guide throughout their entire program
Salary: Negotiable and varies per Guide based on the number of students they are serving and other roles in the organisation, current standard budget assumption is $650 per month if the person has no other role with Wayfinding other than being a Guide
Location: Wayfinding Academy (8010 N Charleston, Portland, OR), occasional meetings and events around Portland

Why does this position matter?

We have a team of Guides who serve as academic advisors and career coaches for our students. Each Guide serves 5-7 students at a time and ideally works with them through their entire 2 year experience at the Wayfinding Academy. The primary role of a Guide is to (1) help the students navigate the academic requirements of the program in an informed and intentional way; (2) help the students build a strong effective portfolio they can use to show the world who they are and what they can do and (3) help their students make connections in the community and choose learning opportunities (e.g., Labs, Learn & Explore trips, internships) that are a good match for them. The Guide role is one of the most fundamental and critical roles in the students’ experience at Wayfinding.

Key responsibilities for this position include:

Weekly Meetings with Students:
Meet individually for 45 minutes each week with each of your students during the 12 week academic terms (3 terms per year).
During the one-on-one weekly meetings, check in with students to make sure things are going okay in their core courses, Labs, and internships. Help them think through and identify projects that would be good for inclusion in their portfolio.
Each term students will be asked to set intentions or choose areas of focus for that term, so part of the Guide’s role is to continuously check in with students on their progress towards those to help them build a pattern of accountability.
Assist students with identifying projects they should include in their portfolio to craft their story about who they are and what they want to do with their life. The goal is that each student will have their next steps in place by the time they leave Wayfinding Academy.
Meet weekly with your entire group of students for 90 minutes at a common time during which all Guides are meeting with their groups.
Guide Coordinating/Planning Sessions:
Meet weekly with the Guides team for 60-90 minutes to coordinate the program on an ongoing basis and recalibrate as needed throughout the term.
Meet once during each break (December, April, and August) with the entire Guides team and the Wisdom Council to look ahead to the upcoming term and get on the same page with the planned curriculum.
Meet once during each break (December, April, and August) with the faculty members teaching the upcoming core courses to understand the flow of their courses and their Roadmap so you have the information needed to be able to effectively support your students throughout that course.

Documentation & Evaluation:

Take notes on the weekly meetings with students and build a Guide Log for each student which helps capture information related to their values, purpose statement, Labs, projects, etc. all in one place that could be shared with other Guides, Student Services, or the Chief Academic Officer.
Complete an evaluation sent by the Chief Academic Officer at the end of every term which provides feedback and a narrative evaluation for each student for their own personal growth and also for their official transcript.
Participate in weekly or bi-weekly crew meetings.

Who we think will thrive in this role:

Statement of diversity & justice:

We believe diverse backgrounds and perspectives are not simply ideal, but critical to the Wayfinding Academy, the movement to re-imagine higher education, and to the students we serve. We believe justice is an active pursuit, not a passive stance. As such, we place special emphasis on candidates from underrepresented racial, ethnic, religious, gender association, sexual orientation, economic, (dis)ability, and cultural backgrounds which will increase the diversity of our organization and help us strive toward justice on those (and other) fronts.

Wayfinding Academy does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, religion, national origin, disability, previous military service or any other protected category in the admission of students, employment, access or treatment in its programs and activities or the administration of its educational and employment policies.

Wayfinding Academy is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicable federal and state laws and guidelines are followed, including Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Executive Order 11246 of 1965, as amended by Executive Order 11357 of 1967; Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended; and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

How to apply:

To apply for any of the above positions, please send a resume and a cover letter to people(at)wayfindingacademy.org. In addition, please provide answers to the following prompts depending on which position(s) you are applying for:

If applying for the Lead Matchmaker position:

What are 3 strategies that the Wayfinding Academy could use to find and begin conversations with students who are likely to be interested in enrolling?

If applying for the Internship Program Coordinator position:

What are 3 organizations or businesses which would be likely to want to host Wayfinding students and how should we reach out to them?

If applying for the Guide positions:

What are the three biggest barriers to success that students encounter and how can you help overcome them?

For all positions:

Read our Creed here: https://wayfindingacademy.org/creed

Choose one line from the Creed that resonates with you and tell us why it does.